Va. has teeth but rarely bites schools suspected of cheating

Virginia educators aren't supposed to get away with cheating or manipulating standardized testing.

If they're caught, the state has the power to revoke an educator's license, withhold the school's accreditation or seek fines in court.

That almost never happens in Virginia, which largely relies on an honor system for testing, not even requiring proof from schools that all students are assessed.

Just two schools caught breaking testing rules have ever lost accreditation in Virginia, and only one educator has given up her license.

When problems surface, officials usually trust school divisions to investigate themselves, and then correct findings with state guidance. Punishment is up to localities.

State education leaders say they focus on helping fix problems, not on penalizing offenders - even in Norfolk, where recent testing troubles "seem to be systemic," according to Patricia I. Wright, the state's superintendent of public instruction.

Her agency stepped in to review Norfolk's practices and, in a report last week, offered a litany of recommendations to improve a disorganized, inconsistent system of managing student testing.

Norfolk administrators have agreed to follow the suggestions. But for months, those same leaders kept the city's School Board, and in some cases the state, in the dark about testing improprieties. Now, the board is deciding what, if any, consequences employees face for problems uncovered at four schools.

"I believe that most school divisions are doing the right thing," Wright said. "But there are always exceptions, and unfortunately we have an exception in Norfolk city."

Superintendent Stephen C. Jones wrote in an e-mail that Wright has never described Norfolk's problems that way to him.

"We do know that we have had significant challenges in the application of testing procedures," he wrote. "The most important thing we can do now is to ensure the implementation of the changes that were recommended by the Department of Education and adopted by Norfolk Public Schools."

Legislation passed in 2000 authorizes the Virginia Board of Education to suspend or revoke an offender's teaching license and to pass along cheating cases to the state attorney general for civil action. Violators could be fined up to $1,000 per offense.

The laws apply to anyone caught purposely copying or sharing test questions or answers, altering student answers or falsely certifying that exam rules were followed.

Del. Bob Tata, R-Virginia Beach, sponsored the legislation "to protect the validity of the test," he said.

But no case has ever been sent to the attorney general. Tata said that surprises him.

"They may overlook some of that stuff because the scores will be high," he said.

State officials took some action several years ago.

At Richmond's Oak Grove Elementary School, investigators found the principal had directed teachers to fill in students' answer sheets, often changing wrong responses.

At Accomack County's Nandua High School, teachers received copied test booklets containing questions that hadn't yet been retired from use on SOL exams.

Both divisions brought actions against the principals' teaching licenses, and the state board suspended their administration endorsements in 2006. The former Oak Grove principal will be able to regain hers in 2011.

The only other time the state board took such action was in 2007, when a Carroll County teacher voluntarily surrendered her license after, among other things, allegedly giving students a "thumbs up" sign when they marked correct answers.

In September 2005, the board unanimously voted to withhold accreditation from the Richmond school and the Accomack school for the 2005-06 year. It is the only time the board has done so for a full year.

The state board's powers to withhold accreditation for testing violations and to initiate investigations into testing problems were written into state codes in 2006.

Two years later, the board approved a policy allowing the state to withhold or deny a school's ratings under the federal No Child Left Behind law until corrective actions are taken.

State Superintendent Wright said that when it comes to licensure, the state board depends on school divisions to compile evidence of an educator's wrongdoing.

"It is not as simple as me saying, 'OK, the teacher violated the test security, so I'm going to recommend to the board that they revoke the license,' " she said.

The other laws aren't intended to penalize, Wright said.

The state board withholds accreditation if testing problems are so widespread that scores aren't credible, she said. Court action is meant to recoup costs from people whose actions cause the state to spend money on developing new test questions.

However, a spokesman for the Virginia attorney general's office wrote in an e-mail that the civil penalty "is not dependent upon any financial loss."

Education lawyer R. Craig Wood also said state law allows the Virginia board to punish cheaters in civil court but should be used only in the most extreme cases.

"They may do it just to make an example of somebody," said Wood, who is based in Charlottesville. "Just to send a message to say, 'We're not going to tolerate it.'"

While the Virginia Board of Education is responsible for enacting education policy - including establishing Virginia's Standards of Learning, overseeing the state's testing and accreditation programs and approving licensing standards and actions - local school boards are charged with directly supervising schools.

State officials cannot fire a school employee or take over a school, said Dena Rosenkrantz, senior staff attorney with the Virginia Education Association.

Each year, the Virginia Department of Education is alerted to roughly 3,000 testing irregularities. They range from fire alarms blaring during testing to students being excluded from exams to teachers providing students with answers.

Such problems are supposed to be reported immediately to school officials. Divisions may resolve some internally, but they must disclose to the state any breach that involves retesting, compromised test procedures or excluded student tests.

The Virginia Education Department is increasingly receiving tips from whistle-blowers, possibly because of media attention and more prominent display of contact information, officials said.

In most cases, school divisions investigate and report back. State officials may choose to look into the most egregious cases, when a school division's top administrators are thought to be involved or if the problem is related to students with disabilities.

Last year, the state conducted four inquiries.

In Roanoke, investigators worked with the superintendent to uncover a principal's practice of excluding some students from SOL exams to boost pass rates.

Within six months, the School Board had fired the principal and four other implicated employees had left the school. The state board temporarily withheld the school's accreditation but granted it later after determining that the school's testing data were adequate and the division had made a good-faith effort to prevent future problems.

The investigation at Norfolk's Lafayette-Winona Middle School didn't happen as quickly or as smoothly.

On the same September day that state educators were looking into allegations that educators inappropriately directed students to an alternative, easier-to-pass assessment, the state board awarded the school conditional accreditation. The inquiry wasn't mentioned.

"We didn't have enough on the investigation to be able to report anything to the board," Wright said. "I didn't have any indication of the extent that this case would end up being."

The Norfolk School Board wouldn't find out about the investigation until December, nearly two months after its completion.

While the review was secret, the principal accused of orchestrating the testing problems, Cassandra Goodwyn, was working to fire the whistle-blower, according to a local panel that later reviewed the issue. In March, the panel substantiated claims of the principal's impropriety.

Wright said the state could offer no protection to the whistle-blower beyond the standard grievance process.

"That is no different from any other personnel action where the teacher feels like they have been retaliated against," she said.

Asked why action was taken against the whistle-blower, Jones responded in an e-mail, "The teacher in question has not been fired. He is a teacher in good standing, and will receive tenure at the end of this school year."

The Norfolk School Board has not released any information on possible personnel actions related to the testing problems.

In another recent case, the Norfolk division failed to follow state rules about reporting the most serious testing irregularities.

In response to a request from the state in February, the division sent an August memo detailing an internal investigation. The inquiry had found that the Dreamkeepers Academy Principal Doreatha White intentionally excluded students from testing.

"I cannot recall another situation in which we have received a report on an investigation a full seven months after it occurred," said Shelley Loving-Ryder, the state's assistant superintendent of student assessment and school improvement. "I'm not certain they would even be able to follow up with our questions, given the amount of time that had passed from the investigation to the time we had the report."

Jones wrote in an e-mail that the division was unclear at the time about which irregularities must be reported.

"We believe we have received more clarity from the Virginia Department of Education on this point," he wrote.

In its review last week, the state recommended additional training for Norfolk staffers on finding, investigating, reporting and correcting testing irregularities.

Some states, such as Wisconsin and California, have departments charged with investigating educator improprieties. Georgia recently criminally prosecuted two educators who tampered with tests, and the state temporarily banned about a dozen from its public schools.

Like Virginia, most states rely on self-policing, researchers say, often because of limited resources.

But local leaders can be reluctant to uncover unflattering information, still more unwilling to act. "It does create a system in which the investigating and enforcement actually is done by people with a self-interest of presenting the district in the best possible light," said Robert Schaeffer of the Boston-based National Center for Fair and Open Testing.

The local panel investigating Lafayette-Winona described "an unreasonable presumption held by some central office administrators that building principals would not willfully violate law or policy."

"They are hesitant to adequately investigate possible wrongdoing, even in the face of documentary evidence that negates the presumption and provides reasonable suspicion of impropriety," the panel wrote.

Jones said in an e-mail that everyone in the Norfolk school division is held accountable.

"We have tried to exercise prudence and due process with every individual against whom allegations have been leveled, and that goes back to the whistle-blower in the Lafayette-Winona case," he wrote. Jones added that the division appointed the local panel to ensure that the situation at that school was properly investigated.

School officials have refused to release the panel's full findings, prompting The Virginian-Pilot to file a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act.

Meanwhile, Virginia and other states are becoming more proactive about detecting cheating.

For the first time this year, Virginia reviewed answer sheets to find unusual erasure patterns. State educators identified groups of students in three schools for a closer look and asked the school divisions to investigate: Richmond's Elkhardt Middle School, Newport News' South Morrison Elementary and Norfolk's Campostella Elementary.

None reported impropriety.